How can I recognize them and are there dangerous look alikes? I just last weekend saw three that I thought were morels but I don't have extensive (or even cursory) mushroom skills. I can forage for greens, berries and fruits with the best of them, but not mushrooms.

The morel is a very distinctive mushroom. Nothing else really looks like it. What you saw were probably morels. There's a thing called a "false Morel", but if you really look at it, it doesn't look like a morel.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morchella

I saw some at Mount Auburn Cemetery last weekend. I let them be but have no doubt they were legit in case anyone find themselves out that way. There are good guides online for new hunters. I am not an expert by any means but do agree that the false morels really don't look too much like the real thing, and apparently they look very different when you cut them open. Morels have a hollow center and stem.

You can find them in old woods, often around mulch in your yard, and most productively around here, in old established orchards, around the bases of the trees. Season starts now, and goes to around the end of the blossoming of the apple trees.That's it. Nothing else looks like them. It's kind of a fun Memorial Day Easter Egg Hunt.Get going, have fun.

As you may know, morel spots are notoriously guarded by their finders, but you could start at Mount Auburn Cemetery since I did see some there. I will say -- and anyone please correct me if I am wrong -- that you *can* find morels around here but this is not the prime part of the country to locate them. I have always known northern Michigan to be a major hot spot and the Great Lakes region in general. But you never know! This is a useful site for beginning: http://thegreatmorel.com/